Canefest 2010

Freshmen waited anxiously at the door in their orientation groups waiting for Canefest to begin. Some students didn’t even know what they were doing there but once the doors opened the groups shuffled in through the second floor. Some students whizzed past the overrun club sports tables of volleyball and lacrosse and breezed by the tables of the various ministries here on campus, these students were here for one thing—the free stuff.

What most students don’t realize when they are stuffing their bags with pins and other goodies, is that Canefest is a large event that takes scores of planning.

“A committee of 10 people, overseen by a Chair and an advisor, meets once a week for the entire summer in order to plan Canefest,” said junior Ashley Taggart, Canefest chair. “People apply to be on the Canefest Committee and are chosen by the Chair.”

Logistically, the event is a large undertaking. There is room for only 140 organizations in the Bank United Center and the spots are assigned on a first come first serve basis. Once the spots fill up the organizations who signed up late get placed on a standby list. On the day of the event the standby organizations wait in a line and hope that a table opens up. According to Taggart, all of the organizations, both registered and standby, got placed at a table this year.

Registered organizations are then placed on the floor in color groups, in accordance with how they are registered with C.O.S.O., and each group contains many organization categories.

In addition to the logistics, graphic design for promotional materials is a large part of Canefest. Senior Ken Garcia and junior Coral Milican designed the 2010 logo and t-shirt using Adobe Illustrator to create the graphic of two silhouettes throwing up the U. After trying to create the silhouettes in illustrator, Garcia and Milican had a friend take a picture of them throwing up the U and that picture became the basis for the design.

“Seeing our logo, that featured ourselves, appear on everything from the plaques, VIP parking passes, coffee mugs for the sponsors, the gift bags, the email signatures was awesome,” said Milican. “But it really doesn’t compare to the feeling of awe that overcame me on day of show when Bob Diccicco, our t-shirt guy and sponsor, delivered the boxes of white tshirts and I could see it everywhere.”

Canefest is not just the culmination of orientation week but also the culmination of a summer of planning for the Canefest committee. This year’s successful Canefest kick started a great fall semester here at The U.


This story was written for the 2011 Ibis Yearbook, the yearbook will be printed and distributed in the Fall 2011 semester.